For statements that were ruled to be “True” and “Mostly True”, it’s Obama and Biden at 45.0%, Romney and Ryan at 29.1%. When it comes to “False”, “Mostly False” and “Pants on Fire”, it’s Romney and Ryan at 43.9% and Obama and Biden at 28.8%. In fact, Romney and Ryan have over 4 times as many “Pants of Fire” lies as the President and Vice President. Mitt Romney himself has well over half of the total amount of “Pants of Fire” lies (58.6%) of all the candidates combined!

Here’s the data. You can click the chart for a larger version. All data is as of October 21, 2012 and taken from the Politifact rulings webpages for the four different candidates.

Click image for a larger version

Here’s the data I used:

Just so we’re all clear on who the biggest liars are. And, let’s not forget, Politifact is, by and large, considered right-leaning.

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It would be kind of nice to view this in the context of recent comments. If you look at Biden’s thing a lot of them were in the 2008 campaign which is why Biden has so many more lies (numerically) than Ryan, He simply has had more time to opportunities to do it. How do these scores compare if you only look at things from 2012?

This metric doesn’t take into account the frequency of claims either. If Romney repeats a lie 10 times, it is only one entry, and likewise if he accidentally makes a truthful statement.

Moreover, if you weight the columns like -3 for Pants on Fire, -2 for False, -1 for Mostly False, 0 for Half-True, 1 for Mostly True and 2 for True an interesting picture emerges. Romney and Ryan both have negative scores (more lies that truths, as you pointed out above) and Obama and Biden both have positive sores.

http://www.facebook.com/LoveandHumanity Francisco Javier Arceo

Bump; also, this should then be turned into a proportion, which would yield the probability of “lying.” That would tell us who’s more likely to lie. Magnitudes can be good, but I think proportions would be useful here.

http://twitter.com/alienjazzcat Mark Weaver

who considers it right-leaning? All the right-wingers I speak to think its part of leftist MSM.. Is there any authority on this?

I’d say that makes it as close to center as the American people have ever had.

http://www.facebook.com/sandie.k.lambert Sandie Kat Lambert

I dont get this? it shows Obama with 63 false, Biden with 8 false, Romeny with 32 false and Ryan with 3 false BUT on the chart tehy show more for the red line? Same for the mostly false? So how can it say Romney and Ryan tell more lies?

jedipunk

The chart is measure in percents. Obama lies a smaller percentage of times of all the times measured. So Obama both tells the truth more AND lies more than Romney if you only go by the counts.

Taxes Please

Forget the chart, I can tell you that Romney and Ryan have PHds in falsification.

Example of how “pants on fire” is distinguished from “false” from “mostly false? Or distinguish between the variations of true? It is pretty easy to favorably skew data with such subjective classifications.

Tony Trupiano is the host of the radio program, The Voice of the People, heard on blogtalkradio.com every Monday through Friday from 9 AM until Noon ET and the author of two books, and has been part of the progressive media landscape for 20-plus years. Known as "The Voice of Labor" and as an activist & advocate, Tony has no problem showing up for a good fight. Follow him on Twitter @tonytrupiano.